You know, we’re near the point where technology can provide us with crap-canceling headphones. You combine three existing technologies:
- noise-canceling
- automatic song identification
- ubiquitous WiFi or cellular data streaming
and make headphones that can automatically recognize crappy songs playing near you (say, on the radio at a restaurant), download the song, and play a complement waveform to cancel out the song without canceling things like the conversation you’re trying to have. Don’t be surprised if you discover subliminal advertisements this way, either.